The Chatham Islands - Part 1

It is possible to travel in time, as Sam Mossman discovered on a recent trip to the Chatham Islands.

About 800km to the east of mainland New Zealand lie the remote Chatham Islands. The island group was originally settled around 1000 years ago (depending on which authority you believe) by Eastern Polynesian voyagers. They became the Moriori people, and called their new home Rekohu, meaning ‘misty skies’ or ‘misty sun’.

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Europeans first became aware of the island group in 1791 when the British ship HMS Chatham tripped over it after being blown off course and promptly renamed it. Several hundred years of really hard times followed for the Moriori. European whalers, sealers and settlers stripped out important food sources and brought in diseases which badly affected the Moriori. Then, in 1835 a large group of Taranaki Maori, themselves displaced in the Musket Wars, invaded on a European ship, slaughtering hundreds of the pacifist Moriori and enslaving the survivors. The last full-blooded Moriori, Tommy Solomon (Tame Horomona Rehe), died in 1933, but in recent times those of Moriori decent have initiated a revival of their tradition and culture.

I had visited the Chathams twice before with my buddy Rick Wakelin, who has friends there. He loved the character of the place so much that he eventually built a house on the main island and recently invited my partner, Tracey, and I to visit for a week.

Traveling in time

It can fairly be said that there are several time differences in force at the Chathams. Local time there is 45 minutes ahead of mainland NZ and it is the first inhabited land on our planet to see the rising sun each day. The other time difference is measured in years. It is like stepping back several generations; I reckon the Chathams has the feel and pace of life that New Zealand had when I was growing up, half a century ago.

The people are friendly, helpful, self-reliant, competent and hard-working, and the economy largely relies on fishing, farming and a bit of tourism. Most locals work several jobs to make a living. It is standard to wave to everyone you pass on the metal roads, but there are not many vehicles to face – more likely sheep, cattle and wekas – a wonderful change if you are used to facing Auckland traffic! Ah, I see you are starting to get a feel for the place already.

One thing you will often hear the locals say is “you’ll never go hungry on the Chathams.” Although fresh produce is limited and expensive (we brought a couple of chilly bins of fruit, veges, milk, cheese etc. with us), if you are a hunter, gatherer, diver or fisherman, you can largely feed yourself. The list is long: swans, ducks, wild pigs and sheep, wekas, a massive lagoon full of eels and flounder, huge whitebait runs, miles of empty beaches loaded with tuatua and cockles, plentiful paua (some of which are high and dry at low tide), easy shore fishing for huge blue cod and blue moki, kahawai and kingies at the river mouths, groper (hapuku) in 20 or 30m of water and plenty of crayfish (although the cray season was unfortunately closed when we were there).

A nice catch of blue cod from the rocks. A whole lot of good eating.A nice catch of blue cod from the rocks. A whole lot of good eating.

But guests on the island need to remember that much of the access to fishing spots and tourism sites is over private property. The local people are very helpful about arranging access (a small fee often applies to help with road, fence and gate maintenance), but don’t abuse their hospitality; just take what you need to eat and maybe a taste to take home.

Hanging around in bars

Ours was not to be a hard-core fishing trip – we spent plenty of time visiting the sights around the island, but even so it was not hard to supplement our supplies with kaimoana. Fishing off the Kaingaroa Wharf one evening, I got acquainted with Alec Hutchings, a mate of our host Rick, who was, literally, fishing for his dinner. After he had pulled in a couple of moki and a fat blue cod, his wife Sue wandered down from their nearby cottage, collected the catch and headed back to cook the evening meal.

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The wharf at picturesque Kaingaroa village.The wharf at picturesque Kaingaroa village.

Alec and Sue manage a large block for its Moriori owners and a few days later we (Rick, Tracey and I, along with cocker spaniel Pipi) were heading down one of the longest front driveways in the country (about an hour of 4X4 driving across moorland and peat bog) to the farmhouse for a prearranged BBQ lunch, before taking to the 4X4s again for an expedition to the north side of the entrance to the massive Te Whanga Lagoon.

This is one of the remotest fishing spots on the island, yet I had been there before. On a prior trip, local Tom Lanauze had taken us to the south side of the entrance on an eeling expedition. The entrance was closed but the migrating eels were wriggling over the beach to the sea. It was the easiest fishing in the world: we simply wandered down the beach and popped a few in a sack!

This time round the bar was open, with a good channel running out to sea. This is a seriously pristine area. As we pulled up on the shores of the lagoon, we could see the fins of several metre-long spotted dogfish hunting for shellfish and crabs along the edges in ankle-deep water.

Big kahawai were feeding on piper (garfish) in the channel, and while Tracey and Sue took an excited cocker spaniel for a good walk along miles of white sand beach, unsullied by trash or footprints, the bite came on. Big fat kahawai were crashing the classic Hex Wobblers being cast on spin rods by Rick and Alec. One was a weird, stunted specimen that looked like it was missing a few vertebrae but was still in good condition. I was trying a different approach to see what I could catch with a light surf-rod and shellfish bait but did no good until I put a piper that one of the kahawai had spat up, on the hook, then it was instant action. We had great fishing but eventually had to leave to get back across the moorland before dark. Living closer at hand, Alec and Sue stayed on and caught plenty of kahawai for their smoker, as well as collecting a feed of cockles from the lagoon. We didn’t need to harass the spotty dogfish in the lagoon fringes or try for the kingies that are reputed to hunt kahawai outside the bar; we had all the kaimoana we wanted for the day.

Road-side cod

Next day, Tracey and I were in Rick’s Hilux, skirting the massive Te Whanga Lagoon that takes up about a third of the area of the main island. Our first call was to vist the Admiral Gardens, where we met genial Lois and Val Croon. The Chathams are wind-swept, cold in winter and have acidic peat soils. Getting any sort of garden to grow well is hard, and the first step is to establish a shelter belt to provide protection before other plants can get a toehold. Admiral Gardens represent a lifetime of effort and are well worth visiting if you get to the Chathams. As well as the tour, our hosts treated us to a cuppa, a home-baked hot-cross bun and some entertaining yarns about life on the island.

The Chathams have miles of deserted beaches - ideal dog walking territory.The Chathams have miles of deserted beaches - ideal dog walking territory.

Next, it was off to visit the basalt columns, an interesting and picturesque geological formation on a spectacular section of coast. Tracey had an explore while I wandered down to the bull-kelp swathed rocks with my surf rod. Using paua hua for bait, I cast out into a clear channel between the kelp. Every cast was a bite, with the catch including gnarly, old banded wrasse, but mostly blue cod, and good ones too. Blue cod are not renowned for their fighting ability, but these ones were averaging close to a couple of kilos each and I had to extract them from the heavily weeded area. Fortunately I was using PE3 braid, allowing me to really lean on the fish before they could reef me. After I had skidded half a dozen in over the kelp I wound in my line and we continued on our way, first visiting the shipwreck at Port Hutt, then moving on to visit the old stone cottage. It was originally built under the mountain at Maunganui by German missionaries and when I first visited it years ago it was derelict. Now repaired, it is occupied by Helen Bint, who had lived there as a young child, and after a long stint in New Zealand has returned to live out her latter years there. She lives right off the grid surrounded by her garden and animal companions. She loves visitors and has some great stories to tell, having pretty much become a tourist attraction in her own right and making friends from all around the world.

Chunky blue cod are the main catch off the rocks.Chunky blue cod are the main catch off the rocks.

As the sun set, we headed back down the island towards Kaingaroa. It was a stunning landscape with miles of flat golden grasslands studded with miniature volcanic peaks picked out by the last of the orange and purple sun. But remembering the chunky blue cod with their thick white-fleshed fillets on ice in the back of the ute, I reflected that it wasn’t the land that would be supplying our dinner that night, but the sea. And procuring it hadn’t taken long either. It’s true; you’ll never go hungry at the Chathams!

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   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

July 2019 - Sam Mossman
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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